Cooked and sliced tri-tip with chimichurri sauce at Victorian’s Barbecue.

Photo: J.R. Cohen / J.R. Cohen

Consider the anatomy of a cow. Specifically, the many cuts of meat available to butchers and chefs that can be produced from beef cattle. According to the Meat Buyers Guide produced by the North American Meat Institute, there are dozens of different cuts that any beef-loving Texan can sink his or her teeth into.

Now visit your local steakhouse. There are usually only four cuts available: strip, rib-eye, tenderloin and porterhouse. Where are the rest of the cuts?

Ultimately, steakhouses and barbecue joints choose to serve what customers want to eat and, consequently, what they can make money on.

Barbecue-joint menus are even more limited. Of course, brisket is king. It displaced beef shoulder clod, which was the traditional cut served in Texas barbecue joints until about the 1960s. As Americans came to eat more beef, we developed a taste for fattier and tenderer cuts, and brisket fit that bill.

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More recently, beef ribs, which are even fattier and more tender than brisket, have appeared on barbecue menus.

Still, this being Texas, other cuts of beef are always trying to elbow their way onto barbecue menus. One cut you often see pop up is the “tri-tip.”

Tri-tip is cut from the bottom sirloin area near the back of the cow. It weighs about 2 pounds raw and comes in the triangular shape similar to a fat slice of pizza, with a wide end that tapers to a thin tip.

If you are a backyard cook, I already know what you are thinking: How do you evenly cook a cut of beef with such an unusual shape? Once the thick end is cooked, the thin end will be burnt to a crisp. Indeed, that is the challenge of cooking tri-tip.

Fortunately, tri-tip is no stranger to barbecue, and many techniques have been developed over the years to cook it evenly.

Just as brisket defines Texas barbecue, tri-tip is the chosen cut for Santa Maria-style barbecue that is prominent throughout Santa Barbara County in California. The cut is seasoned and then grilled over large, open-flame pits in such a way that both ends are cooked medium rare.

Once properly cooked, there are a few noticeable characteristics of tri-tip. First it has a “chew,” which is a diplomatic way of saying it’s not always buttery-tender. This is because it is quite a lean cut. If you can get past the chew, the beefy flavor of tri-tip is well worth the extra effort.

In Houston, Victorian’s Barbecue trailer in the Heights has become something of an expert in smoking, rather than grilling, tri-tip. Pitmaster Joey Victorian has come up with a technique in which he is able to smoke tri-tip to a perfect medium rare. He sells only whole tri-tips (and only on Saturdays, for now) that customers can take home and slice themselves. This is because once it is sliced, tri-tip can dry out very quickly.

Tri-tip is often served with a sauce, but stay away from the heavy tomato sauces of traditional barbecue. Rather, treat tri-tip as steak and go with a Worcestershire sauce or an herbal and fragrant chimichurri.

Indeed, tri-tip reminds me of my travels to beef-obsessed Argentina, which has perfected the art of the steak sandwich slider (vaciopán). Lean beef is thinly sliced, stacked on a soft bun and drizzled with a chimichurri of olive oil, parsley, garlic and red wine vinegar. This would be a great way to serve tri-tip.

If you know how to cook, slice and serve tri-tip, it’s a worthy addition to any beef-lovers menu of great cuts of meat.

A native of Beaumont, J.C. Reid graduated from the University of Southern California after studying architecture and spent his early career as an architect in New York City. He returned to Texas in 1995, retiring from architecture but creating his own Internet business in Houston. As his business became self-sustaining, he began traveling Houston and the world to pursue his passion: eating barbecue.

He began blogging about food and barbecue for the Houston Chronicle in 2010 and founded the Houston Barbecue Project in 2011 to document barbecue eateries throughout the area. Just last year, Reid and others founded the Houston Barbecue Festival to showcase mom-and-pop barbecue joints in the city. The 2014 event drew 2,000 guests to sample meats from 20 restaurants.